Medieval Culture.
The middle ages do not require the elaborate, detailed treatment of later periods; and yet it must be admitted that much time will often be consumed in securing anything like an intelligent comprehension of the rudiments or elements of the subject. The period may be approached from many points of view. Possibly the most fruitful are the culture side and the idealistic side. It is indeed possible to combine these two ideas. So much of our literature pictures medieval society, especially as it has to do with the castle and the monastery, that the first phase cannot fail to prove attractive. Dr. Jaeger further points out that the men of this period, intellectually so narrow minded, so uncultured and so limited, would go to any extreme, sacrificing their personal comfort, aye, even their lives in their devotion to an idea. At one extreme stands the warrior, at the other the monk, and yet how much they resemble each other. The monk penetrates the forests of Germany and braves unknown dangers in his devotion to mother church; the crusader, no less of a devotee, lays down his life under a foreign sky, far removed from home and friends. There is then much that is attractive in the period if we follow it with this second thought in mind. Although these men were living embodiments of ideas which may be “alien to our comprehension,” their very ardor and enthusiasm become contagious, once the teacher catches a little of the spirit which animated them. Around some of these great personalities, too, can be woven much of the life of the times. A Charlemagne not only becomes the embodiment of the imperial idea, but behind him looms the shadowy outlines of the imperial system; a Richard I suggests the castle, the tournament, the flower of chivalry, the knight-errant; finally a Gregory VII becomes the incarnation of a great ecclesiastical hierarchy, more terrible with its anathemas maranathas than the bloodiest battlefields. The culture phase is admirably presented in the recent text-books, e. g., in Robinson, Munro, West, Harding, and Myers. When once the teacher becomes saturated with the life and habits of thought of these times, it will not prove such a difficult task to point out and emphasize the ideals of the men of the period, many of which should enter into the warp and woof of American character. In this connection the teacher will find Professor Emerton’s address before the New England History Teachers’ Association on the Teaching of Mediæval History in the Schools most helpful and inspiring.[3]